


Names On The Wall

by michaelb958



Category: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6854650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaelb958/pseuds/michaelb958
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They call us the best of the best. In the end, though, we're all the same. Just names on the wall."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names On The Wall

They call us the best of the best.

We go out there with the very best equipment Earth has to offer - plasma-resistant body armour, the finest assault rifles money can buy, the really good ones get issued even better laser rifles - and we still get mown down. Likes flies to a zapper, except inverted, because we're in the zapper and we can't escape, and every few days it arcs at us, and more of us die. More names on the wall.

You know why they always send out the rookie first? I do. It isn't out of some sense of chivalry. Chivalry is dead, like the rookies. You send the rookie first because then the ambush kills them, not you. Not sure why, because you usually die anyway. Like chivalry did. Chivalry is dead; the aliens killed it. I think someone put it on the wall.

I was a rookie once. We all were once. Somehow I didn't die. They told me, in the sickbay feeling like I was dying, that I'd killed one of the aliens. I didn't believe it before I saw the footage. I'm still not sure I do.

I got to send a rookie out first yesterday. They died, just like everyone else. The mark on the wall is all that's left of them. There are more marks on that wall every time I look.

The aliens outclass us at every turn. We're landing on the broken back of the biggest UFO yet. Four interceptors scrambled to take this one down. None of them will be back in the air for at least three days. Plenty of time for their hangar to be bombed into slag. More names on the wall.

I'm seeing a metal behemoth approach from hiding, ignore my sniper's frantic laser fire, and incinerate the rookie with a stream of plasma - there's nothing left of him, it's like he never existed - and I'm getting the feeling that we'll be the next on the wall.

They call us the best of the best. In the end, though, we're all the same. Just names on the wall.


End file.
